Page 65 of Hellfire to Come
Chapter Twenty-Six
ALICE
I barely registered the sound of a door opening before I was already moving. My legs didn’t ask for permission; they just flew. Through the corridor, past the creaky floorboard near the pantry, around the corner of the house, my socked feet slipping and sliding over the wooden floors until I saw them.
Brooklyn and Dominic stood in the hallway like shadows turned solid, road-worn and still streaked with dust and tension. But they were real. They were back.
Alive.
I crashed into them like a bowling ball.
“Oomph…Alice…!” Brooklyn staggered under my weight as I hurled myself at her. Dominic, ever the shield, tried to catch us both, but we ended up collapsing backward onto the wall in a mess of limbs and laughter and the kind of relief that’s so sharp it borders on pain.
“You’re back! You’re back!” I cried, voice breaking halfway between sobs and hysteria. “Do you know how mad everyone’s been? I mean, I’m so glad you’re alive, but what the hell, Brooklyn?! Did you actually try to die again? Because I swear ifyou keep doing this, I’m putting you in a cage. A magical, talking cage. With glitter wallpaper and no privacy! A pink one!”
She blinked, wide-eyed, horrified at the picture I painted and still stunned, her mouth half-open.
“I love you, too,” she murmured, and that was all it took for another wave of emotion to knock loose in my chest. I was bawling in her arms. Ugly crying with snot and everything.
Dominic groaned beneath us, shifting to sit upright. “Gods, Alice, I think you cracked my rib.”
“I think I cracked three,” Brooklyn muttered, rubbing her side, but she was smiling, and that was everything.
Echo and Chester came tumbling into the room a moment later, the noise impossible to ignore.
“There you are!” Echo cried, her gaze darting between us. “What happened? We know the shaman helped you. Obviously…” she flicked a wrist at me and I glared at her. “What did you have to do? Did she make you give blood? Sacrifice something? Did she speak in riddles?”
“Slow down,” Dominic said, holding up a hand.
Brooklyn winced and sat straighter, pulling herself out from the dogpile. “It’s... complicated.”
“Oh, come on,” Chester grumbled. “We’ve had nothing but ‘complicated’ since this whole thing started. At least give us the CliffsNotes.”
Brooklyn rubbed her temple and looked at me. “You’re okay?”
I nodded, sobering slightly. “I think so. I mean... I feel weird, but not like... cursed-weird. Just tired. Hollow. Like something burned out and left room behind it.”
Echo gave a relieved sigh. “At least you don’t need to worry about demonic possession.” When we all gaped at her she shrugged. I can sense those.”
Then her expression darkened slightly. “Rowan hasn’t woken up yet. Still unconscious. He’s stable, but... unmoving.”
A shadow passed over Brooklyn’s face. “We’ll figure it out,” she said softly. “We have to. The shaman didn’t offer any clue about him.”
And then, like a switch had been flipped, she harrumphed to herself under her breath.
“Here,” she whispered, reaching into her back pocket. “I almost forgot. You’ll need these.”
She pulled something small and familiar from behind her and held it out to me.
My glasses.
I stared.
“The shaman gave these to you?” Unease started clawing at my insides.
“No,” Brooklyn looked at me strangely. “You left them on the front steps. You should be careful, one of us can step on them.”
Everything else, voices, light, warmth, it all blurred to nothing. I took them into shaking hands. Scratched, slightly bent. Just as I remembered.
